Cross Fire

honest living?”
    “You ever been in Iraq, man?” Mitch added. People were starting to stare.
    “You heard the officer,” the second cop told him. “Move along.
Now.
”
    “Hey, man, just ’cause you got an asshole don’t mean you gotta be one,” Denny said, to a few laughs. He could feel the captive audience coming over to his side.
    Suddenly there was some pushing. Mitch didn’t much like to be touched, and the cop who tried went down on his ass between the cars. The other one got a hand on Denny’s shoulder and, like a lightning bolt, Denny knocked it away.
    Time to go
.
    He slid across the hood of a yellow cab and started toward Prospect with Mitch right behind.
    “Stop right there!” one of the cops shouted after them.
    Mitch kept running, but Denny turned around. There were several cars between Denny and the officers now. “What are you going to do, shoot a homeless vet in the middle of traffic?” Then he spread his arms wide. “Go ahead, man. Take me out. Save the government a few bucks.”
    People were honking, and some of them yelled from their cars.
    “Give the guy a break, man!”
    “Support the troops!”
    Denny smiled, gave the officer a crisp salute with his middle finger, and ran to catch up with Mitch. A second later, they were sprinting up Thirty-third Street and were soon out of sight.

Chapter 2

    THEY WERE STILL LAUGHING when they got back to Denny’s ancient Suburban, parked in Lot 9 by Lauinger Library on the Georgetown campus.
    “That was awesome!” Mitch’s doughy face was shiny with sweat, but he wasn’t even out of breath. He was the type whose muscles looked a lot like fat.
“‘What are you going to do?’”
he parroted.
“‘Shoot a homeless vet in the middle of traffic?’”
    “
True Press,
one dollar,” Denny said. “Lunch at Taco Bell, three dollars. The look on po-po’s face when he knows you got him? Priceless. Wish I had a picture.”
    He plucked a bright-orange envelope from under his wiper blade and got in on the driver’s side. The car still smelled of chain-smoked cigarettes and burritos from the night before. Pillows and blankets were bunched up in a ball on one half of the backseat, next to a lawn-and-leaf bag full of returnable cans.
    Behind that, under a stack of collapsed cardboard boxes, a few old carpet remnants, and a false plywood bottom, were two Walther PPS nine-millimeter pistols, a semiautomatic M21, and a military-grade M110 sniper rifle. Also a long-range thermal-optical site, a spotting scope, a cleaning kit for the rifles, and several boxes of ammunition, all wrapped up in a large plastic tarp and bundled with several bungee cords.
    “You did good back there, Mitchie,” Denny told him. “Real good. Didn’t lose your cool for a second.”
    “Nah,” Mitch said, emptying his pockets onto the plastic lunch tray between them. “I won’t lose my cool, Denny. I’m like one of them whatchamacallits. Cucumbers.”
    Denny counted out the day’s take. Forty-five — not bad for a short shift. He gave Mitch ten singles and a handful of quarters.
    “So what do you think, Denny? Am I ready or what? I think I’m ready.”
    Denny sat back and lit one of the half-smoked butts in the ashtray. He handed it to Mitch and then lit another for himself. While he was at it, he lit the orange envelope with the parking ticket inside and dropped it, burning, onto the cement.
    “Yeah, Mitch, I think maybe you are ready. The question is, are
they
ready for us?”
    Mitch’s knees started to jackhammer up and down. “When do we start? Tonight? What about tonight? What about it, huh, Denny?”
    Denny shrugged and leaned back. “Just enjoy the peace and quiet while you can, ’cause you’re going to be famous as shit soon enough.” He blew a smoke ring, then another, which passed right through the first. “You ready to be famous?”
    Mitch was looking out the window at a couple of cute, short-skirted coeds crossing the parking lot. His knees were still bouncing. “I’m ready to start this thing, that’s what.”
    “Good boy. And what’s the mission, Mitchie?”
    “Clean up this mess in Washington, just like the politicians always say.”
    “That’s right. They talk about it —”
    “But we gonna
do
something about it. No doubt. No doubt.”
    Denny extended his fist for a bump, then started up the car. He backed out the long way to get a good look at the ladies from behind.
    “Speaking of tacos,” he said, and Mitch laughed. “Where